Vander Doelen: Howe bridge project in limbo

Dwight Duncan and the Liberal government in Ottawa are trying to spin the public on their plans for the Gordie Howe International Bridge project. The only question is: how are they trying to spin us this time?

Dwight Duncan and the Liberal government in Ottawa are trying to spin the public on their plans for the Gordie Howe International Bridge project.

The only question is: how are they trying to spin us this time? Are they really planning an unnecessary multibillion-dollar buyout out of the competing Ambassador Bridge?

Or are Duncan and the Liberals just trying to make sure the Morouns — their friends, sometime employers of former cabinet ministers and supporters of the party — get the jump on the publicly funded Howe bridge by being allowed to build a new span of their own first?

As everybody knows, the Howe bridge — estimated to cost a couple of billion dollars and carry the bulk of Canada’s exports into the U.S. — is the most important infrastructure project on the national books. And until the Liberals were elected last fall, it was on track to go out to tender this year for a likely construction start next year.

How quickly the project went off the rails after the Liberals came to power. Nine months later there’s no assurance when or even if the bridge will be built. It’s complicated, says Duncan, the former Ontario finance minister put in charge of the project.

The Morouns own some of the property needed on the Detroit side, Duncan says, so it’s going to be tough. Except that’s been the case for more than a decade. The Tories and the State of Michigan had well-advanced plans to have the U.S. properties “condemned,” which is what Americans call expropriation under U.S. law.

The Morouns have had their property condemned for highway projects before — by Michigan’s Department of Transportation. And while their appeals of the condemnation dragged on for 30 years, the I-75 project did get built almost immediately despite the lawsuit, and the state eventually won the court case.

Almost the minute the Liberals were elected, the Howe project screeched to a halt — even though Duncan himself said a few days after the election that the Howe Bridge project was “significant enough in national scale it shouldn’t be affected.”

That was spin, as is now obvious. Within a few weeks the former Tory-appointed chairman of the overseeing bridge authority had resigned in anticipation of being fired by the Liberals. (Dozens of heads of similar federal corporations were dumped, and replaced with Liberal-friendly appointees: that’s Canadian politics).

Then, an eerie silence descended on the project. Allegedly because they had to re-assess — as if the most important bridge in national history had suddenly become a frivolous extravagance on the part of the defeated Harper government.

Meanwhile, several international bidding consortiums had already been assembled, staff hired, and millions were being spent on planning. As you read this, there are massive lawsuits for damages in the making if the contract isn’t awarded soon.

That won’t faze the Liberals — who famously spent $500 million to cancel a military helicopter contract they later approved anyway. It’s not their money.

My guess last winter was, the Liberals have been trying to figure out a way the party and the new Trudeau government can profit from the Howe project. Because that is what has made their party the most powerful political brand in Canadian history: no political advantage is ever given away or wasted. Everything must benefit the party. Every contract, every job, every appointment is vetted in the back rooms for the advancement of Liberal interests. It’s what they do.

My further guess was, they were trying to figure out a way the contract could be gift-wrapped for a Canadian company with impeccable Liberal connections. SNC-Lavalin of Quebec would be an obvious choice, since it has those connections and lands so many federal contracts – including the building of the multi-billion-dollar Champlain Bridge in Montreal. The Champlain was so important to Quebec and its Liberals that it almost squeezed out the Windsor-Detroit bridge in funding priority. Because — well, it’s in Quebec. Voters of a certain age need be told nothing more.

So: we have the U.S. expropriations needed; the Morouns’ desire to have a second span of their own approved to keep the tolls flowing into their pockets; and the innate Liberal need to enhance their power through the project, while somehow crapping on all the hard work the Conservatives accomplished before them. Talk about a poisonous political stew.

Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens believes Ottawa only plans to give the Ambassador Bridge permission to build first, giving the Morouns a chance to preserve their truck transport oligopoly over automotive trade on the Windsor-Detroit border. Once the new Ambassador Bridge opens, the Howe will proceed, he thinks.

Windsor West MP Brian Masse leans with me toward a more cynical assessment. “When did this project go from build to buy?” he asked last week. He also smells a billion-dollar rat.

The political and financial links between the Liberals and the Morouns are impossible to overlook. As is the Trudeau government’s stated goal of running massive deficits.

It’s a given now that the project will now cost much, much more. The only certainty is delay — and damage to the public interest.

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